Confessions from the Quilting Circle - Maisey Yates Page 0,78
Hannah. Would you like to call me a whore? Go right ahead.”
Her grandmother stood there, her chin tilted upward, her expression one of fire.
Anna, Rachel and Emma were struck completely silent, just like Hannah was. The waves in the distance, cars moving by on the nearby highway, all seemed deafening.
“Then it runs in the family,” Hannah said finally. “And now I don’t feel bad for any of you.” She turned and walked away, leaving them standing there. It felt like a bomb had gone off—Emma’s ears were ringing, and the silence around them deafening.
“Let’s go home,” Wendy said. “There are some things that I need to tell you.”
20
There are secrets one must keep. Secrets for one’s country. I do wonder, though, if secrets of the heart ever do anything but hurt.
—FROM A LETTER WRITTEN BY STAFF SERGEANT RICHARD JOHNSON, OCTOBER 11, 1944
WENDY
All the way back home, Wendy turned certain revelations over in her mind.
The way that she had judged Anna.
Because she had cast that other woman, that woman who would break marriage vows, as the worst kind of harlot in the years since she had moved to Sunset Bay.
Herself.
She realized that she had done that to herself.
If you told a story enough times for a long enough time, it became easy to believe. But she’d realized how flimsy it was. How...pointless when that woman had gone after her girls on a public street.
Over the years, she had reframed everything in her mind, because it had been the easiest thing to do. But if she unburied everything, the depth of her hatred for her own self was staggering.
And when she had to speak the words, it had all come flooding together.
She had fractured the truth, swept it underneath the rug.
But now that rug had been pulled back, and she was painstakingly putting those pieces back together, trying to put the picture back into place so that she could explain.
Not just to them. But to herself.
And those pieces were sharp. Jagged. And she knew she wouldn’t be able to sift through them all without cutting herself.
Without bleeding.
Three cars pulled onto the private drive, and then up to the Lightkeeper’s House.
Wendy got out first, inhaling the ocean air, trying to allow the familiar sounds of the waves hitting the rocks, rumbling through her, to soothe her. But she was beyond the point of soothing. She wrapped her lilac shawl more firmly around her body, as if it might hold her together. She walked up the steps of the front porch slowly, and then unlocked the door and pushed it open.
She flicked on the lights, but somehow, the familiar house didn’t feel familiar right now.
The whole world felt alien.
Because when she had written that letter, asking to be the innkeeper of this beautiful place, when she had scrubbed and polished, restored and renewed the building, she had scrubbed away pieces of herself.
As she had given a new facade to this place, she had done the same for herself. For her own life.
But just like the house itself, no matter how new the fixings were, no matter how the wood shone with care from all that polish, no matter the new wallpaper, the new paint, the new appliances in the kitchen, the history remained the same.
Underneath all that beauty, it was still an old house.
It wasn’t made new.
And neither was she.
She had covered and covered for as long as she could. But the wear beneath had come out now. And she should have known that was inevitable. It was just like this house. Something always broke. Because no matter what new things they put over the top of the old, the fundamental structure was from 1894. And so there would always be burst pipes and strange noises.
You couldn’t change who you were.
You couldn’t erase your past.
You could only cover it.
“Mom,” Rachel said. “Let’s go sit down.”
Rachel was taking charge, taking care. Of course. Anna looked tight-lipped and angry, and Wendy was afraid that would only get worse.
Emma looked worried.
The four of them went to the dining table and took their usual places in the chairs.
There were two empty chairs, and that felt like it sat large and heavy in the space.
Jacob’s seat was empty because he was gone. Thomas’s seat was empty. The shape of them had changed.
And it was about to change again.
She was afraid. Afraid this would mean more empty chairs around her table. Her fictional reputation was hurting Anna. It was hurting Rachel. And Wendy couldn’t justify it. Not anymore.